A year ago today, an innocent woman was shot and killed. Within hours the whole world saw the video of her bleeding out on the streets of Iran. Her name was Neda Agha-Soltan and she became a symbol of the human cost to the protests against the oppressive and violent Iranian regime that clearly rigged last year’s presidential election. Neda was one of an estimated 76 people killed by the governments hired thugs during the peaceful street protests.

Neda is a Persian word for “voice”, “calling,” or “divine message,” and she has been referred to as the “Voice of Iran.”

Neda’s boyfriend at the time, Caspian Makan, said she wasn’t part of the Green Movement of Iran’s disputed election, saying she simply “wanted freedom for everyone and it was important to her that the homeland advance a step forward.”

“Love for mankind was part of [Neda’s] being,” said Makan, who was arrested and tortured for 6 days by the Iranian government, but has since fled the country.

Neda and Makan’s families were both badgered and bribed by the regime to blame her death on the protesters. When that failed the government publicly blamed the murder on “western” outsiders – first they said it was the CIA then they changed their story and accused a BBC reporter.

This all seems very familiar to the Tiananmen Square protests and massacre of 1989 and the attempted cover-up and arrests of dissidents that still happens today. Fitting since China is Iran’s most powerful ally.

It is poetic that a women should be the martyr for fight for democracy in Iran, one of the worst anti-women rights governments in the world. Iranian women also played a vital role in the Green Movement protests that brought millions of people into the streets last year.

For some crazy reason the United Nations just elected Iran to serve a four-year term on the Commission on the Status of Women. The U.N. calls the Commission “the principal global policy-making body” on women’s rights and claims it is “dedicated exclusively to gender equality and advancement of women.”

Let’s look at how Iran treats women:

• Punishment for a women accused of adultery is to bury them from the chest down and stone them to death. (If men are sentenced to stoning for a crime, they are only buried to the waist and if they escape during the stoning they are allowed to live.)
• Spousal rape is legal. Other rapes rarely get reported because women can get 80 lashes if they do not provide enough witnesses to prove the rape. Oh, and it takes two female witnesses to equal one male witness.
• Men can escape punishment for killing a wife caught in the act of adultery. In 2008, 50 of these so-called “honor killings” were reported during a seven-month period.”
• A woman can only get a divorce if her husband signs a contract granting that right, unless he is a drug addict, insane, or impotent. A husband is not required to cite a reason for divorcing his wife.
• Morality police roam the streets to harass or arrest women that are not completely covered head-to-toe in traditional Hijab.

Ok, i’ll stop the list there, but be sure there is much more. Let’s just say this is another example of the stupidity of the UN (of which American taxpayers pay 22% of the costs).

Read more on these important topics:
Death of Neda Agha-Soltan
2009-2010 Iranian election protests
Behind HBO’s Documentary “For Neda”
Tiananmen Square protests and Massacre of 1989